Student Pathways
Perhaps it is time for a change in defining
educational goal
Currently we ask…
 SM01 Goals
 SM02 Major
 SM03 Special Services Needs
 SM04 Orientation –Exempt –Status
 SM05 Assessment –Exempt –Status
 SM06 Counseling/Advisement –Exempt Status
 SM07 Orientation -Services
 SM08 Assessment –Servs-Placement
Perhaps we could ask
 What brings you to our college?
 What experience/education do you have?
 Can you tell us about yourself, so we can better meet your
needs?
 Can you afford our programs (some are free)?
 How can we guide you along one of the following
pathways….
Which Path Describes You?
 Explorer – I am new to college or still trying to find the
right college for me.
 Scholar – I am successfully on my way toward a certificate,
degree or transfer program.
 Skills Builder – I am interested in developing my
workplace skills and certifications.
Each College can choose how to
 Tell students what the pathway looks like, who they will find
on it and how your college views or supports students on this
path.
 Identify cohorts for interventions and deliver just in time
services to just those students.
 Use milestones appropriate for each pathway to measure
alignment and success.
Explorer
This is Bahr’s cluster of least-likely-to-succeed students.
About half make it to the other pathways.
This is where students search and discover. They also need the
most help to find out how they can leverage college to meet
their goals. Here is where we assess and inventory, develop
awareness with college readiness and non-credit programs.
Explorer milestones
 Completion of below college coursework to college level in
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the same subject
Completion of non-credit to credit in same…
Returning to college after a dropped year
Achieving good academic standing
Meeting the criteria for either Scholar or Skills Builder
pathways
Scholar
 These are the first time freshmen on a degree or transfer
track.
 We can determine a unit threshold, like ARCC, to put
students into the cohort. We tell them to “get into this club,
you must…”
 Complete college readiness, attempt college math and English
 Declare a major and maintain good academic standing
 Imagine….
Current MIS Codes for Ed Goal
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A Obtain an AA degree and transfer to a 4year institution
B Transfer to a 4-year institution without an
AA degree
C Obtain a two year associate's degree
without transfer
D Obtain a two year vocational degree
without transfer
E Earn a vocational certificate without
transfer
F Discover / formulate career interests,
plans, goals
G Prepare for a new career (acquire job
skills)
H Advance in current job / career (update
job skills)
I Maintain certificate or license (e.g.
Nursing, Real Estate)
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J Educational development (intellectual,
cultural)
K Improve basic skills in English, reading or
math
L Complete credits for high school diploma
or GED
M Undecided on goal
N To move from noncredit coursework to
credit coursework
O 4-year college student taking courses to
meet 4-year college requirements
X Uncollected / unreported
Y Not applicable
One Way to Map Pathways in MIS
 Imagine a two letter code for ed goal
 The first character represents the PATHWAY
 A for Scholars, B for Skills Builders, C for Explorers
 The second character remains the same as our previous ed
goals
 The following is an example. We can debate the final coding
later.
Possible New Codes for Ed Goal
 AA Obtain an AA degree and
 The top four goals could be
transfer to a 4-year institution
 AB Transfer to a 4-year
institution without an AA
degree
 AC Obtain a two year
associate's degree without
transfer
 AD Obtain a two year
vocational degree without
transfer
mapped to the Scholar
Pathway
 These four goals have been
combined in prior research
on transfer
Possible New Codes for Ed Goal
 BE Earn a vocational
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certificate without transfer
BF Discover / formulate
career interests, plans, goals
BG Prepare for a new career
(acquire job skills)
BH Advance in current job /
career (update job skills)
BI Maintain certificate or
license (e.g. Nursing, Real
Estate)
 The next five goals could be
mapped to the Skills Builder
Pathway
 These have also been
combined in prior research
on vocational outcomes
Possible New Codes for Ed Goal
 The remaining choices could be
combined under the Explorer
Pathway
 Obviously, we can decide on other
ways to map or combine but that’s a
debate for later
 CJ Educational development
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(intellectual, cultural)
CK Improve basic skills in English,
reading or math
CL Complete credits for high
school diploma or GED
CM Undecided on goal
CN To move from noncredit
coursework to credit coursework
CO 4-year college student taking
courses to meet 4-year college
requirements
CX Uncollected / unreported
CY Not applicable
Now… back to the Scholar Pathway
Scholar milestones
 Completion of college level math
 Completion of college level English
 Completion of college level science
 Transferable Course success rate >70%
 Completes 30 units or 7 cont. primary terms
 Attends fulltime (percent taking 11+ units)
Skills Builder
 Completed 8+ units in CTE or job-related courses
 Course success rate >70%
 Many of these students start as Explorers
 Some overlap with college readiness and developmental
education is okay
Skills Builder milestones
 Certifications
 Gainful Employment
What would implementation look like?
Colleges Can Choose
 Some colleges will want to give different names to pathways.
That’s okay.
 Some colleges will want to continue using the old ed goals,
and we can accommodate that
 Some colleges may choose to use web tools to assist students
in identifying/selecting a path
 Some colleges could align student pathways across the
institution
One Way to Go
 Imagine a college that asks thoughtful questions to help
‘triage’ or direct students to the pathways and support
services they need
 Students and Faculty identify with these pathways and
provide momentum to achieve high rates of success for their
milestones
 College makes visible: “Are you on track?”
Let Students Self Select a Path
 Ask them to choose a pathway every term
 When they register, ask: “Last term you were on XX
pathway, are you still on this pathway, or do you need to
make a change?”
 The choice can be three to five* pathways that we can easily
code and report in MIS
 We may add pathways for non-credit or lifelong learning
depending on the final debate
Then we compare
 We can compare students’ course taking behavior with the
path they say they are on.
 Based on students’ chosen pathways and the additional
information we collect specific to each student… age,
gender, SES, academic preparedness, first generation status,
etc…
We will have better data
 We can research students’ declared pathway versus the
students’ behavior.
 Better than that, we can effectively measure specific
milestones for each pathway. Smaller successes captured and
less blur in metrics.
 Instead of an ‘ed goal’ as we now collect it, we can determine
if a student’s choices and behavior align AND if she met a
milestone.
We can do two amazing things
 We can provide targeted support services to each student
based on the alignment between what they say and what they
do.
 We can measure success based on milestones that are
appropriate. This could become a report card for the student
AND an aggregated success indicator for the institution.
In closing
 My biggest concern is that we ask students for all sorts of
data, most often for our own purposes and many students
know this.
 For once, let’s ask the student something that MATTERS to
THEM, and actually USE it to direct them towards successful
support services, rather than check a box and use it for
“research.”
Thank You
Marc Beam
Director, Research and Planning
Shasta College